Top 19 'Pantry-to-Palette' Craft Supplies to make for a Zero-Waste Art Project at Home - Goh Ling Yong
Have you ever stood in the middle of a craft store, basket overflowing, and had a moment of sticker shock? Or perhaps you've felt a pang of guilt looking at the plastic packaging and synthetic materials that come with so many art supplies. The desire to create is a beautiful, fundamental human impulse, but in our modern, consumption-driven world, it can sometimes feel at odds with a desire to live more sustainably.
What if I told you that a vibrant, fully-stocked artist's toolkit is already hiding in your home? Tucked away in your kitchen cupboards and refrigerator is a treasure trove of pigments, binders, and textures just waiting to be discovered. This is the magic of the 'pantry-to-palette' philosophy: a zero-waste, budget-friendly, and deeply sensory approach to making art. It’s about transforming everyday ingredients into extraordinary creative tools.
This guide is your invitation to look at your pantry with an artist's eye. We'll explore 19 common household items that can be repurposed into incredible, eco-friendly craft supplies. Get ready to unlock a world of color, texture, and creativity, all while making a positive impact on the planet—and your wallet.
1. Turmeric for a Radiant Yellow
That humble jar of golden spice in your rack is one of the most potent natural dyes you can find. Turmeric provides a brilliant, earthy yellow that can range from a sunny lemon to a deep, warm marigold. It’s an ancient pigment, used for centuries in everything from cooking and medicine to dyeing fabrics and creating art.
To make a simple watercolor-style paint, just mix a teaspoon of turmeric powder with a few drops of hot water to form a thick paste. The heat helps release the pigment. For a more permanent and robust paint, add a binder. A tiny drop of honey or glycerin will give it a glossy finish, while mixing it with a bit of egg yolk creates a beautiful, fast-drying tempera.
Pro-Tip: Turmeric is a powerful stainer! Protect your surfaces and wear old clothes. You can also experiment by "painting" with a turmeric paste on paper and then spritzing it with a baking soda and water solution—the alkaline reaction can shift the color from yellow to a surprising reddish-brown.
2. Coffee & Tea for Earthy Browns
Don't you dare throw out those used coffee grounds or that forgotten teabag! Leftover coffee and tea are fantastic for creating a range of beautiful, translucent brown washes, perfect for staining paper to look aged, creating monochrome landscapes, or adding subtle shadows to your work. The strength of your brew dictates the depth of the color.
For a light wash, simply dip a used teabag (black tea works best) in a little warm water and use it directly on your paper. For a darker, more opaque paint, use leftover strongly brewed coffee or instant coffee granules mixed with a tiny bit of water. The aroma alone makes this one of the most enjoyable DIY art supplies you can create.
Pro-Tip: Let your coffee or tea "paint" dry completely between layers to build up depth and value. You can also sprinkle coarse salt onto a wet wash of coffee; as it dries, the salt will absorb the pigment and create stunning, starburst-like textures.
3. Beetroot for Vibrant Pinks & Reds
For a pop of brilliant magenta or a subtle dusty rose, look no further than the humble beetroot. This root vegetable is packed with a powerful pigment called betanin, which makes for a stunning, all-natural colorant. You can use juice from a can of beets, or better yet, make your own by grating a fresh beet and squeezing the pulp through a cheesecloth.
Beetroot juice works beautifully as a watercolor, but it does fade over time when exposed to direct sunlight. Think of it as ephemeral art! For a more concentrated color, you can buy beetroot powder from health food stores. Mix this powder with a little water to create a paste that’s perfect for painting.
Pro-Tip: Beetroot paint is pH-sensitive. Try adding a squeeze of lemon juice (acid) to brighten it to a more vibrant pink, or a pinch of baking soda (alkaline) to shift it towards a deeper, more purplish hue. It's a fun and simple kitchen chemistry experiment!
4. Paprika & Chili Powder for Warm Oranges and Reds
Open your spice drawer again for a palette of warm, fiery tones. Paprika—especially sweet or smoked paprika—offers a gorgeous, earthy orange-red, while chili powder can provide a deeper, more rustic brick red. These spices are finely milled, making them perfect for creating smooth, blendable paints.
Just like with turmeric, mix the spice with a little hot water to create a paste. The fine powder dissolves beautifully, giving you a consistent color. These pigments look incredible when used to paint autumnal scenes, sunsets, or warm-toned abstract pieces. You can almost feel the warmth radiating from the page.
Pro-Tip: Layer paprika washes over a base of turmeric paint to create rich, complex orange shades. The spices blend together on the paper in a way that feels organic and incredibly satisfying.
5. Spinach & Matcha for Natural Greens
Finding a strong, stable green pigment in the pantry can be tricky, but spinach and matcha green tea powder are excellent contenders. For a quick green dye, blend a handful of fresh spinach with a small amount of water and strain the liquid through a fine-mesh sieve or cloth. The resulting green liquid is a lovely, fresh, grassy color.
For a more concentrated and vibrant green, matcha powder is your best friend. It’s a bit of an investment, but a little goes a long way. Whisk the fine powder with water to create a smooth, opaque paint that has a beautiful, velvety finish when dry.
Pro-Tip: To create different shades of green, try mixing your spinach or matcha paint with a little bit of turmeric. This will warm up the green, giving you shades from lime to olive.
6. Flour & Water for Classic Craft Paste
Forget buying tubs of synthetic glue. The most effective and simple adhesive for paper crafts and papier-mâché has always been a simple mixture of flour and water. This classic paste is non-toxic, incredibly cheap, and surprisingly strong once it dries.
To make it, slowly add water to a cup of all-purpose flour, whisking continuously until you have a smooth, pancake-batter-like consistency. You can use it cold, or for a stronger, smoother paste, gently heat the mixture in a saucepan for a few minutes until it thickens (don't let it boil). Let it cool completely before using.
Pro-Tip: This paste is the foundation for papier-mâché. Tear strips of old newspaper or junk mail, dip them in the paste, and layer them over a balloon or a cardboard armature to create durable, lightweight sculptures.
7. Salt for Texture and Preservation
Salt is a multi-talented superstar in the zero-waste artist's toolkit. Beyond its use in creating watercolor textures (as mentioned with coffee), it can be used to add grit and body to paints or to create a simple, air-dry modeling clay.
Its preservative qualities are also a huge bonus for your homemade supplies. Adding a pinch of salt to your DIY paints (especially those made with fresh ingredients like beet juice) can help inhibit mold growth and extend their shelf life, though refrigeration is still recommended.
Pro-Tip: Create your own textured "sand paint" by mixing fine table salt and a bit of your homemade paint with flour paste. This creates a thick, gritty medium that’s fantastic for adding dimensional, sandy textures to mixed-media art.
8. Salt Dough for Sculpting
Three simple ingredients—flour, salt, and water—combine to make one of the most versatile and child-friendly modeling compounds around. Salt dough is perfect for creating ornaments, small sculptures, beads, and figurines. The high salt content helps to preserve the dough and makes the final, dried creation rock-hard.
A classic recipe is 2 parts all-purpose flour, 1 part table salt, and 1 part water. Mix the dry ingredients first, then gradually add the water until a firm, pliable dough forms. Knead it for a few minutes until smooth, and then start creating! You can air-dry your creations over several days or bake them at a very low temperature (around 100°C / 200°F) for a few hours until completely hard.
Pro-Tip: Once your salt dough creations are dry, they provide the perfect canvas for your other pantry paints! Decorate your sculptures with turmeric, paprika, and coffee paints for a completely natural, pantry-to-palette masterpiece.
9. Egg Yolks for Traditional Tempera Paint
Step back in time and create paint just like the Renaissance masters did. Egg tempera is a permanent, fast-drying paint made by mixing pigment with a binder of egg yolk. It has a unique, luminous quality and a durable, matte finish. Here at the Goh Ling Yong blog, we love exploring how ancient techniques can be revived for contemporary, sustainable art.
To make it, carefully separate an egg yolk from the white. Gently roll the yolk on a paper towel to dry the membrane, then pierce the membrane and let the liquid yolk run into a small dish, discarding the sac. Mix this pure yolk with a small amount of your powdered pantry pigment (like turmeric or paprika) and a few drops of water until you have a creamy consistency.
Pro--Tip: Egg tempera dries very quickly, so only mix a small amount at a time. It’s best applied in thin, cross-hatching layers rather than thick, heavy strokes. Clean your brushes immediately with soap and water, as the dried paint is not water-soluble.
10. Blueberries & Blackberries for Purples and Blues
These delicious berries can be a bit tricky to work with, but they can yield some of the most beautiful and elusive colors in the natural world: blues and purples. Crushed berries release a stunningly vibrant juice that can be used as a watercolor-like ink or dye.
Simply mash a handful of fresh or frozen (and thawed) berries in a bowl and strain the juice. You can use this juice directly on paper. The colors can be a bit fugitive, meaning they may change or fade over time, but this adds to their unique, organic charm.
Pro-Tip: Like beetroot, berry juice is highly sensitive to pH changes. Adding a little lemon juice can shift the color towards magenta, while a tiny bit of baking soda solution can turn it into a murky but fascinating blue-green. Experiment on a test strip of paper first!
11. Potato Stamps for Printmaking
Before you had rubber stamps, you had potato stamps! This classic craft is a wonderfully simple introduction to the world of printmaking. The firm, even texture of a potato is perfect for carving, and it holds paint well enough to make several impressions.
Cut a medium-sized potato in half. You can either draw your design on the cut surface with a marker and carve around it with a small knife or simply use small cookie cutters to press a shape into the potato and then cut away the excess. Pat the carved surface dry with a paper towel, brush on your homemade paint, and press it firmly onto paper or fabric.
Pro-Tip: Other firm fruits and vegetables work well too! Try carving an apple, a carrot, or the end of a celery stalk for different shapes and textures.
12. Cardboard as a Canvas
Forget expensive canvases. Your recycling bin is full of perfect painting surfaces. Cardboard from cereal boxes, shipping boxes, and food packaging provides a sturdy, absorbent, and wonderfully textured base for your art. The neutral brown color also makes a beautiful background that can allow your natural pigments to really shine.
Just cut the cardboard to your desired size and you're ready to go. The unprinted, brown side is great for a rustic look, while the printed side can be covered with a "gesso" made from flour paste mixed with a little bit of salt or chalk powder if you want a blank surface to start with.
Pro-Tip: Use corrugated cardboard and peel away the top layer to reveal the wavy inner structure. This creates an incredible texture that is fun to paint over or use for printmaking.
13. Dried Pasta, Beans, and Lentils for Mosaics
Unleash your inner mosaic artist with the colorful and varied shapes found in your dry goods section. Dried beans (black, kidney, pinto), lentils (red, green, brown), split peas, and different shapes of pasta become your "tiles" or tesserae.
Simply draw a design onto a sturdy piece of cardboard, apply your homemade flour paste to a small section at a time, and press the beans or pasta into place. This is a fantastic sensory activity and a great way to teach about patterns, colors, and textures. The final piece is a wonderfully dimensional work of art.
Pro-Tip: You can dye light-colored pasta or white beans by shaking them in a sealed bag with a few drops of beetroot juice or turmeric paste for an even more colorful palette. Let them dry completely before using.
14. Activated Charcoal for Deep Blacks
If you need a deep, rich black, look no further than activated charcoal. Often sold in capsules for digestive health, this is an incredibly fine, pure carbon powder that makes for an intense black pigment. It's much darker and less gritty than using ash from a fireplace.
Be very careful when opening the capsules, as the powder is extremely fine and gets everywhere! Mix the powder with a binder like egg yolk or a bit of flour paste and water to create a deep black paint. It can also be used as a dry powder for smudging and drawing, much like artist's charcoal.
Pro-Tip: A little goes a very long way. Start with a tiny amount of powder and gradually add your liquid binder. You can also mix charcoal with flour paste to create a grayscale palette.
15. Twigs and Herbs for Natural Paintbrushes
Why use a synthetic brush when nature provides such interesting alternatives? Venture into your backyard or park (or even your herb garden) to find your next paintbrush. A small bundle of pine needles tied tightly to a twig makes a fantastic brush for creating grassy textures.
A sprig of rosemary or thyme can be used to dab and stipple paint, leaving behind a unique, organic pattern—and a lovely scent! Even a simple twig with a frayed end can be used for drawing and mark-making with your homemade inks. This practice, often encouraged in creative circles like those inspired by Goh Ling Yong, connects the artist directly to the natural environment.
Pro-Tip: Experiment with different natural materials. A feather, a sturdy leaf, or a piece of cotton can all become unique tools for applying your pantry paints, each creating a different effect.
16. Coffee Grounds for Gritty Texture
Those used coffee grounds aren't just for making brown paint; their gritty texture is a fantastic artistic material in its own right. Once dried, the grounds can be mixed into your flour paste or thicker paints to add a wonderful, earthy texture reminiscent of sand or soil.
Spread wet coffee grounds on a baking sheet and let them dry completely (you can speed this up in a low oven). Once dry, you can sprinkle them onto wet glue to create a textured surface or mix them directly into your modeling dough or paint.
Pro-Tip: Use a coffee-ground-and-paste mixture to sculpt dimensional elements in a mixed-media piece, like the bark of a tree or a rugged mountain range.
17. Oatmeal for Modeling and Texture
Rolled or instant oats can be ground into a fine powder (oat flour) or used whole to create interesting textures and even a type of modeling clay. When mixed with flour paste, whole oats create a lumpy, rustic material that’s perfect for folk art-style sculptures.
To make a simple, pliable clay, mix ground oat flour with an equal amount of all-purpose flour and add just enough water to form a dough. It’s wonderfully soft and has a lovely, wholesome smell. This dough air-dries to a light, durable finish.
Pro-Tip: Press whole rolled oats into the surface of a wet painting or a salt dough creation before it dries to add a beautiful, repetitive pattern and organic texture.
18. Honey or Glycerin for DIY Watercolors
While our pantry pigments mixed with water work well, they can sometimes be a bit chalky when dry. The secret ingredient to making them behave more like traditional watercolors is a humectant—a substance that attracts and retains moisture. Both honey and vegetable glycerin (available at most pharmacies) work perfectly.
When making your paints (with turmeric, paprika, etc.), add just a tiny drop of honey or glycerin to your pigment-and-water paste. This will make the paint flow more smoothly, dry with a slight sheen, and, most importantly, makes it "re-wettable"—meaning you can let your paints dry in a palette and reactivate them with a wet brush later, just like store-bought watercolors.
Pro-Tip: Create a travel palette by dabbing your honey-infused pantry paints into a bottle cap or seashell and letting them dry completely. Now you have a portable, zero-waste watercolor set!
19. Olive Oil as a Sealant or Binder
A little bit of kitchen oil, like olive or vegetable oil, can serve a couple of unique purposes. For one, it can be used to create a simple "oil pastel" effect. Mix a pantry pigment with just enough oil to form a very thick, clay-like paste. You can then use this paste to draw on paper, smudging and blending it with your fingers.
Additionally, a very thin layer of olive oil can be gently rubbed onto a finished, completely dry salt dough creation to give it a soft, subtle sheen and a bit of moisture resistance. It can deepen the colors of the pantry paints you used to decorate it.
Pro-Tip: Experiment with "oil resist" art. Use an oil-pastel-style crayon (or even just a finger dipped in oil) to draw a design on paper, then paint over it with a watery paint like beet juice or coffee. The paint will be repelled by the oil, revealing your design.
Your Creative Journey Starts Now
Stepping into the world of 'pantry-to-palette' art is about more than just saving money or reducing waste; it’s a reawakening of the senses. It’s the earthy smell of coffee paint, the surprising vibrancy of a beet-based ink, and the satisfying texture of salt dough in your hands. It’s a return to a more intuitive, resourceful, and connected way of creating.
By looking at everyday ingredients through an artist’s lens, you unlock a universe of potential that was right under your nose the whole time. You learn about chemistry, history, and nature, all while making something beautiful and uniquely yours.
So, I challenge you to open your cupboards this week. Pick one or two items from this list and just start experimenting. Don't worry about the outcome; just enjoy the process. Which pantry supply will you transform first? Share your zero-waste art projects and discoveries on social media using the hashtag #PantryToPalette and let's inspire each other
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
Stay updated with the latest posts and insights by following on your favorite platform!